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CHILD
LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT
CLD booklet, updated 2009
CHILD LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Foreword
This booklet was prepared to contribute to your understanding and assist
with revision for your first year examination. It is NOT a substitute for
your lesson notes but rather a supplement of them. Your teacher and your
own wider reading are the best resources. Above all, you need to evaluate
this research by observing children’s talk and collecting examples of your
own. Your lessons and this booklet are only a starting point.
You will often hear and read about the “stages” of acquisition but treat this
with caution as babies vary a great deal; the stages are sometimes difficult to
distinguish and different researchers use different terms sometimes to refer
to the same thing.
In this booklet you will find information to encourage you to think about
acquisition from conception until school age. Language acquisition goes on for
much longer. (This booklet does not include reading, writing and other linguistic
skills, for example, which you will study later). However, you should be aware of
significant ‘stages’ and features of acquisition from 0 - 5 years.
Introduction
Children all around the world seem to acquire language by passing through a
similar set of ‘stages’. The time taken to move from one stage to the next can
vary from child to child, but the stages themselves and the order in which they
are negotiated appear to be universal: the same pattern of development applies
regardless of the language being acquired.
BEWARE!! CHILDREN DO NOT DEVELOP AT THE SAME PACE. CHILDREN OF SIX MONTHS,
NINE MONTHS OR ANY OTHER AGE WILL OFTEN DIFFER MARKEDLY FROM EACH OTHER.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Contents
CHILD LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT ........................................................... 1
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ............................................................................... 1
Foreword .......................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1
Contents ................................................................................................................... 2
SO HOW DO CHILDREN ACQUIRE LANGUAGE? ................................. 5
THE MAIN THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION .................... 6
BEHAVIOURISM (Imitation & Reinforcement) ............................................ 6
Evaluation of this Theory ........................................................................................... 6
NATIVISM (Innateness Theory) ...................................................................... 7
Evaluation of this Theory ........................................................................................... 8
The Critical Development Period .............................................................................. 8
COGNITION THEORIES .................................................................................... 9
OBJECT PERMANENCE .............................................................................................. 9
CLASSIFICATION ..................................................................................................... 10
SERIATION ................................................................................................................. 10
Evaluation of this Theory .......................................................................................... 10
Further Research ........................................................................................................ 10
INPUT THEORIES ............................................................................................... 11
A Question of Terminology ....................................................................................... 11
PHONOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 12
LEXIS ............................................................................................................................. 12
GRAMMAR ..................................................................................................................... 12
Discourse ....................................................................................................................... 13
Further Reading ........................................................................................................... 14
Evaluation of Input Theories .................................................................................... 14
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 15
Summary of the most important factors about acquisition .............................. 15
EARLY PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT .......................................................15
THE FUNCTIONS OF CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE ..................................16
PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT .............................................................18
‘Before Birth’ and ‘The First Year’ ................................................................... 18
Before Birth .................................................................................................................. 18
SOUND PERCEPTION ................................................................................................ 19
Stage One: 0-8 weeks: Basic biological noises ............................................ 19
Stage Two: 8-20 weeks: Cooing and laughing ............................................. 20
Stage Three: 20-30 weeks: vocal play ......................................................... 20
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Stage Four: 25-50 weeks: babbling ................................................................ 20
The Rules of Babbling ................................................................................................ 22
Phonemic Expansion & Contraction .......................................................................... 21
Intonation and Gesture ............................................................................................. 23
Stage Five: 9 - 18 months: melodic utterance............................................. 23
Proto-Words ................................................................................................................ 22
Speech Interaction ....................................................................................... 22
BEYOND THE FIRST YEAR: Later Phonological Development ......... 23
SUBSTITUTION ........................................................................................................ 24
DELETION ................................................................................................................... 24
ADDITION .................................................................................................................. 26
DE-VOICING ............................................................................................................... 25
VOICING ...................................................................................................................... 25
HARMONISING (or ASSIMILATION) ............................................................... 25
REDUPLICATION ....................................................................................................... 25
Intonation ........................................................................................................ 26
LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT ......................................... 27
LEXICAL DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................. 28
First Words.................................................................................................................. 28
Semantic Development ................................................................................. 29
UNDER-EXTENSION ................................................................................................ 30
MISMATCH ................................................................................................................. 30
Labelling, Packaging and Network Building ..................................................... 31
Verbal Art ..................................................................................................................... 31
SUFFIXING ................................................................................................................. 32
PREFIXES ..................................................................................................................... 33
CONVERSION ............................................................................................................. 33
COMPOUNDING ......................................................................................................... 34
Other Issues................................................................................................................ 35
USING THE CORPUS ................................................................................................ 35
ESSAY QUESTIONS ............................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
GRAMMATICAL DEVELOPMENT .............................................................. 36
SYNTAX ................................................................................................................ 37
One-Word Stage ......................................................................................................... 36
TWO-WORD STAGE ................................................................................................. 37
MEANING RELATIONS IN THE TWO-WORD STAGE .................................. 38
Other issues in the two-word stage....................................................................... 40
Transition ..................................................................................................................... 40
Imitating Parents ........................................................................................................ 40
TELEGRAPHIC STAGE ....................................................................................... 40
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Summary ....................................................................................................................... 42
ACQUISITION OF INFLECTIONS .............................................................. 44
UNDERSTANDING OF GRAMMATICAL RULES ........................................ 44
Other Grammatical Issues ....................................................................................... 45
Pronouns ........................................................................................................................ 45
Asking Questions ........................................................................................................ 46
Saying ‘no’ (negation) .................................................................................................. 46
LANGUAGE ACQUISITON – THE MAIN FEATURES ........................ 48
ESSAY PRACTICE ......................................................................................... 49
REVISION ........................................................................................................51
BOOK LIST ..................................................................................................... 53
CLD booklet, updated 2009
SO HOW DO CHILDREN ACQUIRE LANGUAGE?
It’s not so easy to work out, is it?
The research that does exist is fascinating but unfortunately there is no one
clear solution to the question of exactly how children acquire language.
Everyone needs to acquire a certain minimum ability in language. It’s a complex
skill. If you’ve studied a foreign language, you’ll know! You need a range of
knowledge to speak, read and write the language. There are 20+ vowel sounds,
24 consonants of a spoken dialect of a language and over 300 ways of combining
these into a sequence e.g. s + k + r = scream
m + P + s = jumps
An active adult vocabulary can reach 50,000 or more words and a passive ability
to understand half as many again.
There are at least a thousand aspects of grammatical construction, dealing with
all the rules - some general and some specific - governing sentence and word
formation. There are the prosodic features of pitch, loudness, speed and
rhythm to acquire - the tones to convey meaning (it’s not what you say it’s the
way that you say it).
There is a large, but uncertain, number of conventions governing the ways in
which sentences can be combined into spoken discourse. There is a large
number of conventions governing ways in which varieties of the language differ
so that the linguistic consequences of region, gender, class and occupation are
assimilated. One has to learn the different ways of being interesting, logical,
persuasive and polite. Add to this the uncertain and large number of strategies
governing ways in which all the above can be bent or broken to achieve special
meanings and effects!
(To be literate there is an additional set of skills to acquire - letter recognition,
spelling rules, reading strategies, writing techniques etc.) which we will come to
later.
It’s a life-long, complex process.
The way you learn a second language differs from the way you learn a first as
knowledge of a first language affects the second.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
MOST children learn to talk by the time they are 5 on a wide variety of topics
using language that is clear, rich in vocabulary and varied in sentence patterns,
using subtle shades of meaning appropriate to situation and purpose.
How does it happen?
Attempts have been made to explain how children acquire their first language.
There are 4 main hypotheses (principled guesses). Two are ‘social’ theories and
two are psychological \physiological.
1] Behaviourist theory (imitation and reinforcement).
2] Nativist theory (innateness)
3] Cognitive theory (linked to intelligence)
4] INPUT theory (child-directed speech; interaction; “Motherese”)
THE MAIN THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
(You must learn the scholars associated with each theory)
BEHAVIOURISM (Imitation & Reinforcement) You need to read\research the work of SKINNER (1957). This approach argues
that children acquire language by IMITATING the speech of others. When a
child produces words successfully s\he receives praise and encouragement,
subsequently motivating the child to repeat the behaviour. Skinner regards
language as similar to other kinds of human behaviour: if we do something and it
has positive, pleasant consequences, we are more likely to do it again. In terms
of language, when the child speaks words, and later sentences, s\he may be
rewarded e.g. if the child asks for a biscuit and is given one, then there is
success and reward. The child may even see that his\her parents are happy and
approving. This REINFORCEMENT assists the child’s use of language and
encourages development.
Evaluation of this Theory
In terms of PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT (learning sounds) and the
acquiring of words (Lexis) then imitation does play an important part. Children
develop regional accents showing that they do imitate sounds around them.
They also pick up words and “parrot” them as they acquire a vocabulary (but a
word does not come ready made with its meaning and you need to ask whether
this can be acquired through imitation).
CLD booklet, updated 2009
This is a theory with flaws:
All children pass through the same stages of language development
regardless of the type and amount of adult reinforcement they receive. If
acquisition was entirely dependent on parental reinforcement then there
would be more variation between individual children.
Children cannot acquire grammar by imitation. Sentences are rarely spoken
in the same way twice. Children must acquire the rules of grammar and they
do. When a child says “wented” s\he is applying a rule - which rule?
When a child mentions “mans” (for ‘men’) s\he is applying another rule.
They have not heard adults say these words and they have not been
encouraged to make these mistakes so what does this show? * You should
research BERKO’s “Wug” Theory here *
Children can produce sentences that are entirely original and can understand
an infinite number of sentences. They are not limited to sentences they
have heard spoken by others. They discover the PRINCIPLES that underline
the constructions and are then able to generate new utterances.
Children often seem impervious to correction. A parent could correct “I
felled off my bike” to “I fell off my bike” repeatedly but until the child is
happy with the ‘rules’ behind irregular verbs s\he will continue to use the
more logical ‘ed’ for past tense. Imitation and reinforcement often do not
work.
See ‘Skinner in depth’ (on Moodle) for further criticisms.
NATIVISM (Innateness Theory) Criticism of Skinner’s approach was led by Noam CHOMSKY (research him!)
whose alternative theory of language acquisition was proposed in 1965. Chomsky
proposed that children have an innate (inborn) ability to extract the rules
underlying language from the words they hear being spoken around them. He
believed that when the human brain is exposed to speech at birth, it will
automatically begin to receive and make sense of utterances because it has been
programmed to do so. If there is no physiological defect this language
‘blueprint’ develops into speech. Chomsky called this a Language Acquisition
Device (LAD) which was later renamed the Universal Grammar (UG). The
programmed patterns “primary linguistic data” are general and the child has to
CLD booklet, updated 2009
learn the rules by applying them. According to Chomsky, different languages
have different surface structures but they all share the same deep structure.
For example, sentences containing a subject, verb and objective are common to
all languages. Children are said to possess an innate awareness of this deep
structure, and this explains why they are able to develop language proficiency so
rapidly: from birth their brains are ready to analyse what they hear and to
understand how the language system of the society they have been born into
works.
Evaluation of this Theory
The existence of an LAD would explain:
The impressive speed with which children learn to speak
The fact that children of all cultures pass through similar stages
The existence of grammatical features common to all languages (linguistic
universals)
Children are able to understand and use new sentences and constructions
without having had any previous experience of them
The fact that children whose parents only interact with them a little, learn
language as well as children whose parents interact with them a lot
The main criticism of Chomsky’s theory has been that it underestimates the
power and role of language as a social phenomenon. (i.e. the interaction with
other people). Some people have mistakenly interpreted Chomsky’s theory as
implying that the acquisition of language will happen automatically. IT NEEDS
TO BE REMEMBERED THAT CHOMSKY’S THEORY MAKES CLEAR THAT
CHILDREN MUST BE EXPOSED TO LANGUAGE IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO
PROCESS ITS RULES AND PRINCIPLES. Research and Case Studies, such as
the Bard and Sachs “Jim” Study (1977) and the “Genie” Case, show that human
contact is essential to become a competent speaker but this SUPPORTS
Chomsky rather than challenges him. The fact that many children whose parents
pay them very little attention and often speak to them in non-standard English
(what Nativists call ‘the poverty of the stimulus’) still learn language
adequately is evidence that while some interaction is necessary, its amount and
its quality are not that important.
The Critical Development Period
Research the work of LENNEBERG, who developed Chomsky’s idea of the LAD.
He hypothesised that there is a Critical Development Period within which a child
CLD booklet, updated 2009
must be exposed to language in order for him\her to develop normally.
Lenneberg advocated that a child must acquire the basics of language through
human interaction by the time s\he reaches puberty.
There have been occasional cases of ‘wild’ (or feral) children who have been
deprived of normal contact with humans and have therefore never acquired
language. Some have been discovered at a young age and have rapidly caught up
on language development. Those cases discovered as teenagers, however, rarely
manage more than a few odd words, telegraphically organised, even in the face
of intensive training.
Genie, discovered at age 13 in the 1970s, had no language because her parents
hadn’t spoken to her and had punished her if she made a sound. She had been
denied social contact. Despite years of teaching by psycholinguists she never
grasped the grammar that even normal five year olds use:
spot chew glove
apple sauce buy store
But her case is not evidence of Lenneberg’s hypothesis, as you will realise when
you watch the documentary on Genie.
COGNITION THEORIES You need to research the work of Jean PIAGET (1896-1980), a Swiss
psychologist whose ideas about intellectual development in children have had a
major influence on teaching and education.
Intellectual development in children - the development of mental abilities and
skills - is known as Cognitive development. Stages in language acquisition are
said to be linked to stages in cognitive development. Piaget’s hypothesis is that
children can only use a certain linguistic structure when they understand the
concept involved (e.g. past tense can only really be grasped when a child has a
concept of past time. Similarly, concepts of colour, space and size must be
understood). When considering cognition theory, it is useful to focus on three
areas:
OBJECT PERMANENCE
This is the child’s ability to recognise that objects have an existence
independent of his\her interaction with them. Before they develop this
awareness, children believe that an object fails to exist once it moves out of
sight and that it is a different entity once it reappears! The development of
object permanence begins during the first year but is not usually complete until
CLD booklet, updated 2009
the child is approximately 18 months old. At this time there is a sharp increase
in the child’s vocabulary. Cognitive Theorists believe that the two events are
linked: once a child has realised that objects have an independent existence,
the next step is to learn how to name those objects.
CLASSIFICATION
This is the child’s ability to classify objects and actions. A child learns that
some things are eaten, some are played with, some are sat upon, etc. Cognitive
theorists believe that once a child can classify, s\he is ready to divide words
into linguistic categories (nouns, verbs, etc. on the basis of their semantic,
morphological and syntactic properties). This ‘ordering’ of language prepares
for sentence construction.
SERIATION
This is the child’s ability to arrange objects, such as stories, in order or
increasing or decreasing size. Children who are not able to do this describe
objects as ‘long’ or ‘short’ but children with an awareness of seriation are able
to use the comparative terms ‘longer’ and ‘shorter’. Cognitive theorists argued
that to make judgements on size is a conceptual skill and the child’s cognitive
development must be mature for this to occur.
Evaluation of this Theory
There appear to be close connections between language development and
cognitive development but many argue that the role of cognitive development in
linguistic development is overstated. Studies have been made of children whose
mental development has been retarded but who can still speak fluently
(savants). It would appear that a child’s ability to grasp grammar and sentence
structure is independent of cognitive development. Piaget’s work neglects
language as communication (i.e. as a means of establishing and maintaining
relationships with others) rather than a means of conveying thoughts.
Further Research
Find out what you can about the Russian cognitivist, Lev VIGOTSKY, who argued that the
emergence of linguistic skills has an effect on cognition! He advocated that cause and effect
are difficult to determine as the two abilities appear to develop in parallel.
e.g. words like ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘brother’, ‘sister’ may draw children’s attention to certain
conceptual distinctions that would otherwise develop more slowly. Through language children
may make faster cognitive discoveries about family relationships.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
INPUT THEORIES (This is the research, mainly of BRUNER in 1970s)
Input theories are the most recent of the theories of language acquisition.
They stress the role of INTERACTION in the development of language,
focusing in particular on the interaction that takes place between children and
parents (or other carers), often called ‘Motherese’ or ‘caretaker speech’ but the
correct terminology is child-directed speech. A child’s language acquisition is
said to depend on the contribution (or INPUT) made by parents and “significant
others”.
Here are some general points that are relevant in describing how adults alter
the way they speak to children, giving them specific opportunities to take part
in discourse.
Parents speak more slowly to children. They use simplified constructions and
less complex vocabulary. This makes it easier for a child to imitate the
parents, and the task of learning the sounds and structures of language is
made less demanding.
Parents EXPAND the child’s speech.
C: All gone sweets.
P: Yes. The sweets have all gone, haven’t they? Have you eaten them all?
In this way the child’s vocabulary and sense of sentence structure is
gradually extended.
Parents INTRODUCE new words by using familiar sentence FRAMES “What’s
…... ?”
“It’s a …..”
The new word is highlighted as the rest of the sentence (or ‘frame’) is
familiar.
Parental interaction introduces CONVENTIONS OF CONVERSATION: turn
taking, question and answer sequences etc., assisting with pragmatic
development.
A Question of Terminology
At first, researchers were concerned with the language that mothers used
towards children. The term ‘motherese’ was used - there are also studies on
‘fatherese’. However, particularly with changing social circumstances, it was
recognised that mothers and fathers were not always the main or only
significant adults in children’s lives. Consequently the alternative ‘caretaker
speech’ was adopted. However, CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH is a broad term now
commonly used by linguists and you are advised to use it too.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
You should note that, although there are very similar patterns in the language
used by adults of various kinds towards children, there are also differences.
Fathers tend to be more demanding than mothers, using more direct questions
and a wider range of vocabulary. (Read research of ENGLES in 1980).
What follows is an outline of the distinctive characteristics of CHILD-
DIRECTED SPEECH. (You will enhance your knowledge by observing and noting
interactions for yourself).
PHONOLOGY
Meanings can be assimilated if time is spent on a word.
Slower, clear pronunciation. This makes language more accessible. Pace of
talk is slower.
More pauses, especially between phrases and sentences to give child
opportunity to absorb what is being said and to respond if s\he could.
Higher pitch and more range of pitch. This helps to keep the child’s
attention, especially if it is accompanied by varied NVC.
Exaggerated intonation and stress: the sing-song intonation in particular
makes this variety of speech particularly distinctive.
LEXIS
Simpler, more restrictive vocabulary. More concrete nouns relating to the
child’s ‘here and now’. All objects are named in broad categories e.g. ‘dog’ not
‘spaniel’.
Diminutive (or “baby”) forms of words - ‘doggie’, ‘horsie’
Reduplication “mama”, “choo-choo”
GRAMMAR
Simpler constructions.
Short constructions with many pauses to mark end of grammatical units.
Sentence ‘frames’: “Where’s ...... ?”
“Do you want a ..... ?”
“What’s that? “ “It’s a .....”
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Grammar and meaning are simplified to correspond with the child’s actual
ability in language (e.g. a two year old’s average ‘sentence’ is 4 words so the
parent uses 4 words).
Frequent use of imperatives (commands). A child quickly assimilates these
and uses them in his\her speech.
High degree of repetition to reinforce new words or structures and to
clarify meaning.
Frequent questions to elicit a response. Questions use more auxiliary verbs
too, developing grammatical ability. Tag questions such as ‘aren’t we?’ ‘Isn’t
it?’ invite direct participation. Even when a child cannot speak, s\he is
learning important discourse patterns and skills, especially turn-taking.
Personal pronouns are infrequent. Proper nouns are used instead. “Give it to
Mummy” not “give it to me”.
Discourse
Questions and tag questions (as above).
Expansion: to build on a child’s speech and encourage new structures.
Feedback: much time and energy are spent in obtaining feedback.
A child receives attention and usually face-to-face communication deemed to
be invaluable in building positive relationships and successful interaction with
others.
Bruner puts language acquisition firmly into a social context, emphasising that
language gets things done: ‘Children learn to use a language initially . . . to get
what they want, to play games, to stay connected with those on whom they are
dependent.’ (1983, p.103)
Partly as a humorous response to the LAD, Bruner proposed the existence of
LASS – The Language Acquisition Support System. This system essentially
refers to the support for language learning provided by parents – who do more
than provide models for imitation. The example below illustrates this.
LASS and shared reading:
Parents often use books as a focus of attention for developing babies’ naming
abilities. This can also show how parents offer a support system for their
children’s language learning. Note too how the baby doesn’t only learn the
names of objects and actions but also needs to know rules for participating in
this kind of conversation. In other words, the baby doesn’t learn names for
their own sake but learns them as part of a naming activity with its own social
rules. Recent research (Whitehurst 1988) has found that if parents use
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specific teaching strategies their babies’ language development can be
significantly improved.
Bruner found a four phase structure in a mother’s interactions with her child
while sharing a book – an example of the LASS provided by the parent.
1. Gaining attention – drawing the baby’s attention to a picture.
2. Query – asking the baby to identify the picture.
3. Label – telling the baby what the object is.
4. Feedback – responding to the baby’s utterance.
Some variation was observed when the baby correctly named the object (Phase
3 was either missed out or coincided with feedback).
Further Reading
Read the research of CLARKE-STEWART in 1973 and SALLY WARD in 1988.
Evaluation of Input Theories
The benefits of child-directed speech are clear but it is not possible to identify
precisely the links between structures parents use and their appearance in their
child’s language. When a child advances another stage in its acquisition of
language, it is hard to be certain about what has caused this. It does not seem
to be essential that adults address children in a particular way because children
reared in cultures where adults do not alter their speech when addressing
children (Samoa and parts of Papua New Guinea) still appear to acquire their
native language at normal rates of development.
However, the highly structured nature of ‘child-directed speech’ is not in doubt
and it is taken very seriously by linguists.
You may wish to consider child-directed speech in other contexts (idea for
Investigation in the second year?):
Lovers may use baby talk in an affectionate way when addressing each other.
People address their pet animals in similar way: “pet-directed speech”??
Notice how carers speak to elderly people.
BUT: to what extent is this reflecting negative stereotyping and an assumption
that old age means reduced mental capacity? (Read research of COUPLAND
1991). Is it patronising and demeaning, or, for the frail, deaf and ailing, a
positive, caring use of language?
CLD booklet, updated 2009
CONCLUSION It is not possible in the present state of knowledge to be certain which of the
theories is responsible for language acquisition. It seems that imitative skills, a
language - learning mechanism, cognitive awareness and the structured input of
child-directed speech all play a part in guiding the course of language
development. Unravelling the interdependence of these factors constitutes the
main goal of future child language research.
Summary of the most important factors about acquisition
To acquire language, children must be part of a SOCIAL and LINGUISTIC
COMMUNITY.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT plays a part in children’s ability to articulate the
particular PHONEMES making up a language.
Children have an INSTINCTIVE AWARENESS of language patterns which
allows them to experiment with new structures.
Children must be able to INTELLECTUALLY CONCEPTUALISE the world
around them.
Children can gain new words and sounds through IMITATION but not the
meanings.
PARENTAL REINFORCEMENT highlights ‘correct’ versions although children
are impervious to correction.
EARLY PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT
“When young children acquire English, or any other language, they are acquiring
a tool for social action”. DENNIS BANCROFT
Pragmatics is the study of the part that language plays in social situations and
social relationships. As well as learning the sounds, words and meanings of
language, children have to acquire what the linguist DEL HYMES calls
“communicative competence”. This means developing all the skills associated
with conversation: when to speak and when to be silent; how to respond to
CLD booklet, updated 2009
others; which register to use for which situations and what functions language
is used for.
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with what words do or achieve
rather than with strictly what they mean. For example, if I say door you know
that it refers to that thing we open when we go into rooms – a matter of
semantics. But the pragmatics of door! are about whether I mean Shut it! (commanding you) or It’s about to slam (informing you). Pragmatics also covers
such issues as knowing how to ask and answer questions in a conversation.
Even before they have said anything that sounds remotely like a word babies
know that utterances can work for them in a number of ways.
THE FUNCTIONS OF CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE
Knowing what language is used for is part of a child’s early pragmatic
development. Children are motivated to acquire language because it serves
certain functions or purposes for them. MARK HALLIDAY (1975) identified
seven functions that language has for children in their early years and DAVID
CRYSTAL added another two in 1987 (see separate hand-out which your teacher
will give to you).
Even before s\he can speak a single word, a child is using ‘language’ for certain
purposes - a cry can be instrumental - “I want some food”. A smile can be
interactional\personal (“I like you”) and a bawl can be regulatory (“come and pick
me up otherwise I’ll deafen you!!”)
Before they can speak, children are introduced to the important role that
language plays in everyday life. Adults and others speak a great deal to them
and routine events, such as feeding and bathing, are accompanied by language.
They are learning about a world in which language accompanies most activities.
Interactions between child and parent (or significant other) prepare the child
for later participation in conversations. BANCROFT 1996 observes that the
traditional game ‘peek-a-boo’ has several parallels with a typical conversation -
- Turn taking
- Each participant responds to the contribution made by the other
- There is a common purpose and sequence
- It’s enjoyable
CLD booklet, updated 2009
In the early stages of a child’s life, the adult begins the exchanges and the
child may take little active part, but as the child grows older it takes more
control, and by the age of 9-12 months will probably be initiating games like
‘peek-a-boo’. Other spoken interactions similarly follow the structures and
conventions of conversations. Adults will ask questions, express agreement and
give other approving or disapproving responses, even though the child is not yet
speaking.
Non verbal aspects of speech (NVAS) are also developing in the child as part of
these early pragmatic skills.
From the age of six weeks a baby’s hand movements, facial expressions, voice
tone and lip movements are different when their parents are talking to them.
Babies are treated as if they have intentions like real conversational partners.
Research has also shown that as babies get older, parents respond to different
aspects of their behaviour. Gaze is very important. The parent works out
where the baby is looking and comments on the object. Later the baby’s actions
serve the same purpose and a few months after that, actions are combined with
words. HARRIS ET AL (1995) found that pointing coincided with a child’s first
understanding of object words (concrete nouns).
Study the following examples of parents’ responses to a three and a half month
old baby. Write down the assumptions made about the causes of the baby’s
behaviour. Assess how the use of NVAS and language are working together to
contribute to language learning and why. (You may wish to test Halliday’s
research as part of this).
BABY PARENT
Looks sideways What are you looking at?
Smiles Who’s a happy boy then?
Sneezes Ooh!
Passes wind Ooh, that wasn’t very nice, was it?
Kicks legs Be careful, you’ll shoot off the end
Urinates Not on me!
Holds rattle Good boy
Puts rattle to mouth That’s a clever boy
Cries He’s not in a good mood this morning
A simpler system is that of JOHN DORE, shown in the table below:
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Speech Act Example
Labelling touches a doll’s eyes and says eyes Repeating says what an adult has just said
Answering answers adult’s question
Requesting action unable to push a peg through a hole says uh uh uh
whilst looking at parent
Calling shouts for parent across room
Greeting shouts hi! Protesting shouts when parent attempts to put on shoe
Practising utters word when person or object not present
(in Foster and adapted 1990 Longman p.63)
An important influence of work such as this is that it emphasised the social
context of language - i.e. the child learns to do things with language because of
his/her need to communicate with others. It was a challenge to those who
believed that babies are innately pre-programmed to learn language.
PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
‘Before Birth’ and ‘The First Year’ The ability to articulate the sounds of English is believed to be the first
linguistic skill that a child acquires. It does not begin with the first word as
many believe. S\he has to be physically able to articulate the phonemes of the
language before words can be made and subsequently formed into sentences.
(In other words s\he must learn the tune before the words can follow).
Before Birth
It is believed that the first sign of an infant’s identity is the rhythm of its
language. Even within the womb a child can hear, not specific words nor
understand them, but s\he can detect rhythm. A Chinese embryo can detect
the PITCH rhythm of the oriental language; a French baby can detect the
SYLLABLE timing of French and an English baby detects the distinguishable
sounds of STRESS-TIMED rhythm. (Tum-ti-tum-ti-tum-ti-tum) So you might
say that the first linguistic acquisition is an awareness of the rhythm of the
language spoken around the pre-natal child.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
INTERESTING FACT:
One of the first ‘faculties’ to develop in an embryo is the ability to hear. (The
bones of the ear are formed quite soon after conception). This would explain
the acclimatising of a child to sound even while in the womb.
Research by MEHLER and others in 1988 found that French babies as young as
4 days old were able to distinguish French from other languages. When they
were exposed to French they sucked on dummies more strongly (a sign of
interest in an infant!!). They were less “interested” when they were exposed to
other languages. This is a further indication that while in the womb babies
become used to the rhythms and intonation of the language being spoken around
them.
SOUND PERCEPTION
A baby has a very large range of auditory abilities. S\he will turn to sound in
the first few hours after birth, especially the sound of a human voice, usually
the mother’s. There is sophistication and differentiation in the ability to hear.
EIMAS (1971) researched the child’s ability to differentiate the sounds ‘pa’ and
‘ba’ at 4 weeks old. It seems that children are born with special feature
detectors to respond to the acoustic properties of speech. Between 2 - 4
months infants respond to TONE. By six months intonation related to context
is understood (i.e. rise for a question).
The pre-verbal stages following provide an outline of vocal development during
the first year. Based on DAVID CRYSTAL (1986).
Stage One: 0-8 weeks: Basic biological noises During the first few weeks, the child expresses itself vocally through crying.
Different kinds of cry can be identified - hunger, distress or pleasure, for
example. Cries are ‘reflexive’ noises. A normal basic cry is a series of pulses,
each pulse being about one second long. The quality of sound is similar to a
‘mouth-wide-open’ vowel such as [a]; hardly any features of a cry resemble later
consonants. Babies from different countries make the same sound - no
linguistic differences as yet and yet there are some features in common with
later speech, for example, an airstream mechanism which is used to produce
noise. Also, the child can vary its rhythm and pitch patterns. Context often
helps a parent to understand what a cry means. For example, preceding events
such as sleep, time since last feed and nappy changing will affect the likelihood
that a cry is hunger-related.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Stage Two: 8-20 weeks: Cooing and laughing The sounds are quieter, lower pitched, more musical. At the beginning of this
period, each segment of cooing is quite short (about 1\2 second). It consists of
a short vowel-like sound usually preceded by a consonant-like sound made
towards the back of the mouth, where the tongue and palate approach each
other. It is quite nasal in quality. Sounds are made like ‘coo’, ‘goo’ and the
reduplicated ‘ga-ga’. It is thought that during this phase the child is developing
increased control over its vocal cords and getting ready for speech. ‘Ga-ga’’ and
other reduplication could be perceived as early syllable structure. Cooing
involves gross motor activity and more extensive movement of the tongue up and
down and side to side. There is more lip movement at this stage.
By now sounds are being formed in the VELAR region of the mouth (‘ga-ga’, ‘coo’)
and the child is becoming increasingly aware of what its mouth and vocal chords
can do. Really this is the start of the phoneme.
Stage Three: 20-30 weeks: vocal play Cooing sounds die down. Single vowel-like or consonant-like sounds are repeated
over and over again. Several sounds are made at front of mouth [mmmm] and
[nnnn] or friction sounds such as [ffff]. Baby is getting practice for future
speech.
Consonant-vowel (CVCV) sequences are more noticeable e.g. ‘Mama’, ‘dadadada’.
There is greater range of consonant-vowel sound and the nasal aspects of ‘m’
and ‘n’ are developing.
Uvular sounds made by the back of the tongue and labial sounds formed at the
lips are giving the baby a vocal work-out as it limbers up for speech. There is a
strong element of practice. In this period parents notice much more variety in
their children’s noises. They may even get regular showers as the child
practises the fricative sounds of ‘f’, ‘z’ and ‘s’ !! (Parents often join in bubble-
blowing sessions to develop fricative and plosive sounds which are generally
difficult to make in the early stages!)
Stage Four: 25-50 weeks: babbling Ababababab\dadadada - this is reduplicative babbling and there are variegated
sequences - adu, mabu. More complex friction sounds are present - ‘s’ and ‘sh’.
Cluster consonants are avoided - early speech prefers consonants to occur
before vowels - ‘ta’ rather than ‘at’. Surveys suggest still no differences in
babbling between different races.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
The child is trying out sounds in a random manner at this stage.
Babbling continues up to 18 months and often alongside ‘real’ speech.
The Rules of Babbling
Below are listed some of the different kinds of sounds that make up babbling;
they are in approximate rank order from easiest to most difficult. Note the C-
V (consonant-vowel) combinations.
EASY
DIFFICULT
Stopped sounds - where air is momentarily
stopped from being released e.g. (P)
Reduplication - where the same combination is
repeated e.g. (ba ba)
Variegated babbling (as above but vowel sound
changes) e.g. (ba ga)
Consonant cluster - number of consonants are
combined e.g. (/fr/)
Friction sounds - where there is a vibration whilst
air is released (e.g. ‘s’ in ‘pleasure’)
Identify the following in the examples below and suggest why some combinations
might be easier than others. (You will have to babble to answer this!!)
splocka bababababa bpbpbpbpb taba
dadudaduda shugushugu
Phonemic Expansion & Contraction
During the babbling phase, the number of different phonemes produced by the
child increases initially. This is known as PHONEMIC EXPANSION. This is
believed to be the infant’s ability to articulate a wide range of the sounds of
the world’s languages not just his\her own native tongue. However, by the age
of 10 months, the number of phonemes reduces (PHONEMIC CONTRACTION)
and the range of sounds made by the child shrinks, becoming increasingly
restricted to those of the child’s mother tongue. In other words, the baby
retains the sounds of its native language but suppresses or discards those
sounds that will not be needed. (You may wish to consider the issues of bi-
lingualism here).
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Intonation and Gesture
About this stage patterns of intonation begin to resemble speech e.g. rising
intonation for a question. Other variations of emphasis or rhythm may suggest
greeting or calling. There is also increased pointing.
Stage Five: 9 - 18 months: melodic utterance Melody, rhythm and tone develop, also ‘scribble talk’ - first signs of real
language. Children from different language backgrounds now sound increasingly
different from each other. In the transition from pre-language to language,
children produce many ‘proto-words’ where the sounds are clear but the meaning
is not.
Proto-Words
Generally speaking, proto-words are what come in between babbling and melodic
utterance and adult-like words. It can be seen that babbling consists of a
consonant-vowel (c-v, c-v) pattern. Proto-words can sound exactly the same.
What is important is that proto-words seem to function as words even though
they do not sound exactly like them e.g. wawa - water, bobo - bottle.
Conditions aiding the emergence of PROTO-LANGUAGE:
1. Child-parent interaction.
2. ‘Significant others’ joining in.
3. Repetitive, ritualised activities – bathing, feeding, dressing, bedtime.
4. Context related talk (“here and now”).
Although the child may not yet have begun to speak properly, it does not mean
that s\he does not understand the meaning of certain words. In fact, babies as
young as two months old respond to the meaning of different tones of voice and
by 6 months can relate different utterances to their situations e.g. ‘Bye-Bye’,
‘Clap hands’. The research of HELEN BENEDICT (1979) revealed that
comprehension ability is at least a month ahead of production.
Speech Interaction
From the moment a child is born, a mother holds it in front of her and talks to
it, even though the child does not yet have any language.
It appears to be instinctive to promote communication as soon as possible and
even the child’s biological noises (sneezes, burps, etc.) are seized upon as stimuli
CLD booklet, updated 2009
for talk. The mother, father and significant others all ascribe intentions to
these noises and build them into a conversation. The conversational pressure is
often quite intense. A case study conducted by SNOW (1977) demonstrated
that over 100 questions, comments etc. were used by a mother simply trying to
get her 3 month-old to burp!
Other research has shown that a mother’s linguistic behaviour is not random.
She used a large number of questions followed by pauses, as if to show the baby
that a response is expected and to provide an opportunity for response if s\he
could. There is much greeting, even if she has only been away a few seconds.
Also, a mother only speaks when the child could feasibly respond (i.e. not when
s\he is feeding). The cycle of speech and silence is believed to be the
fundamental structure of older conversations and anticipates these. As the
infant becomes capable of doing more, the exchanges become more emotive and
varied. Cooing tends to elicit a soft response whereas later pointing – elicits a
louder interaction from adults as attention is drawn to different objects.
There will be more repetition and NVAs at this time.
Beyond 6 months there will be more extended commentaries as the child is more
purposeful in his\her exploration.
Consequently, by the time the first word appears, the child knows quite a lot
about what a conversation is and how to take part.
So, the first year, considered to be the pre-verbal stage of language
development, is when the child learns to listen: to the sounds of the language, to
words and their uses and to conversational strategies (pragmatics).
BEYOND THE FIRST YEAR: Later Phonological Development
By the first birthday a child has learned a great deal about how adults use
sound to express differences in meaning. However, ability to produce these
sounds lags some way behind.
It is impossible to be precise about later phonological development because the
order in which vowels and consonants are acquired can vary from child to child.
Some children have ‘favourite’ sounds and they enjoy introducing them into many
words. Other children avoid sounds either because they don’t like them or they
are difficult to articulate. There will be variation. David Crystal records a child
CLD booklet, updated 2009
who pronounced ‘blanket’ as [bwati], [bati], [baki] and [batit] all within a few
hours.
However, several studies involving large numbers of children have produced
certain general trends. The work of David OLMSTED (1971) is particularly
important here.
Consonants are first used correctly at the beginning of words. Final consonants
emerge later, although ‘f’ and ‘s’ at the end come early in an English child. (Can
you explain why?)
From a survey of 100 English children, Olmsted revealed that [p], [b], [k], [n],
[f], [d], [g], [m] and [h] were commonly used well in initial position but only the
first five of these were developed in final position.
In the same survey, vowels and diphthongs were developing well by the end of
the second year showing that at least 8 vowels\dipthongs were in use.
By age four all vowels and dipthongs were in use and only a few consonants were
causing problems.
Children attempt to use the sounds of the language and appear to use similar
strategies to cope with the more difficult sound features.
Fricatives are difficult. Children often replace a fricative with a stop e.g.
‘see’ becomes [tii].
SUBSTITUTION
Velar consonants are replaced by alveolar consonants e.g. ‘gone’ becomes
[don].
Consonant clusters are avoided – tree – [tii], glue – [gu], plastic – [patik].
DELETION
Consonants are often avoided at the end of words hat-ha, noise-noi.
Unstressed syllables are omitted:
banana - nana
pyjamas - jamas
tomato - mato
CLD booklet, updated 2009
ADDITION
An extra vowel sound might be added to the CVCV structure preferred by
young children. ‘Egg’ might be ‘egu’. It occasionally occurs also to split up a
cluster to make a word easier to say e.g. bared for bread.
DE-VOICING
This is the process of taking the voice out of final consonants so ‘pig’ might
become ‘bik’.
VOICING
The opposite of de-voicing. At the beginnings of words babies are more
likely to voice an unvoiced consonant, as in ‘pet’ becoming ‘bet’.
HARMONISING (or ASSIMILATION)
This is when one consonant or vowel becomes similar to another e.g. ‘dog’
might become ‘dod’ or ‘gog’.
REDUPLICATION
This refers to the repetition of a whole syllable as in gee-gee, choo-choo – a
recognised feature of baby talk. This process is particularly useful to give
the child the chance to practise pronunciation in stages e.g. ‘tiger’. This
word changes in consonant and vowel. A child might say ‘tidi’. By
reduplicating s\he masters the syllable structure and stress first and then
can work on the precise pronunciation later.
The above rules explaining babies’ pronunciation seem clear cut enough but they
tend to over simplify. Clearly the rules are only tendencies and not every word
uttered by a baby will obey them. In addition there are further complications
associated with comprehension and production. These are illustrated in the
following activity:
What do the following instances suggest about the relationship between a
child’s production and perception or comprehension of language?
1
Roger Brown was speaking to a child
who referred to a ‘fis’ meaning ‘fish’.
Brown replied using ‘fis’ and the child
corrected him but again using ‘fis’.
Finally Brown reverted to ‘fish’ to
which the child responded, ‘Yes, fis.’
2
A baby says ‘dowboy’ instead of
‘cowboy’ without realising it. But he
can hear his parents say ‘cowboy’.
(based on Learning to be Literate,
Garton and Pratt, 1989)o
CLD booklet, updated 2009
You can read more about the ‘Fis Phenomenon’ on Page 90 of Listen to your Child
by David Crystal.
Intonation
Towards the end of the first year Intonation patterns are proceeding very well.
Different tones of voice are in place even before words come along.
Even a simple two-word utterance can be delivered with many functions. Try
the following as a question, a command, a call, a warning, an expression of
recognition or surprise.
Daddy gone.
Gradually the child masters sounds and the prosodics of the language and by the
age of 3 can use almost all the vowels and twice as many consonants. Words like
‘elephant’ are generally accurate and the child can use emphasis for effect.
Between the ages of 3 and 5 there is yet more development. David OLMSTED
studied the pronunciation of children at the age of 4 and discovered that all the
vowels were in place and only a few consonants still posed problems.
L in the middle and final positions – yellow, full
ng in singer [ ]
t in the middle position
The two ‘th’ sounds – then, thin
z at the beginning of words
the consonant [dz] in ‘judge’
the consonant sound [z] in pleasure
‘ch’ in middle position
By five there are some subtle friction difficulties e.g. distinguishing fin and
thin, sin and shin; w & r may also be a challenge for some children. The most
important development between 2 and 4 years is the ability to master consonant
closers:
doubles /sp/, /pr/, /tr/
triples /spl/, /str/
quadruples /mpst/ (e.g. glimpsed)
At the age of six, or thereabouts, the child knows enough about phonology to be
able to play with language in jokes, puns and riddles. Many parents dread the
CLD booklet, updated 2009
“knock, knock”, jokes! David Crystal felt that this playful stage was so vital to
the functions of language that he believed it should be added to Halliday’s
functions of language. The PHONOLOGICAL FUNCTION, as he called it, is
using language for the fun of it. After all, it is how good slang is passed on.
Children love word play, phonological jokes, poetry, chants, songs and rhymes.
Beyond six this social skill develops even more. Phonological competence is
GENERALLY complete by the age of 6, except for the subtleties of intonation.
CRUTTENDEN in 1974 researched children’s ability to predict meaning from
intonation patterns focusing particularly on the Radio 4 football results but only
the 10 year olds could predict the scores accurately.
There was more research conducted on the pausing and intonation patterns of
sentences. You need to read about research into later intonation development
on Pages 193-197 of ‘Listen to your child.’ Even at 10 years, there is still much
to learn on the inflection of the adult voice and the relationship between
production and comprehension skills.
At this point it is a good idea to use the ‘Corpus’ you have been given in
order to practise identifying features of phonological development. Using
‘Corpus 1’ find examples of the following:
syllable deletion substitution
cluster reduction assimilation
LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT
By the end of the first year an infant is acquiring enough sounds to begin to
make proto-words and is gradually moving towards the first “real” word, usually
uttered between 12 and 18 months. The learning of words (vocabulary) is the
most noticeable feature of the early months of language acquisition but by now
you will realise that much has happened before the first word appears. For a
start, the child has acquired a sense of the functions of language and knows the
time!
Between 12 and 18 months an infant has a vocabulary of about 50 words and by
the age of two has a command of about 200.
NOTE: It is very important to make a distinction between production and
understanding. Although a child may be able to say a word and can articulate it
clearly, s\he will not necessarily grasp its meaning. A word does not come with a
meaning ready made. Consequently, it is vital that you understand the concept
CLD booklet, updated 2009
of LEXICAL development (the learning of words) and SEMANTIC development
(the range of meanings attached to words).
LEXICAL DEVELOPMENT
From the point when a child’s first word is identified there is a steady lexical
growth in production and comprehension. The research of HELEN BENEDICT
(1979) revealed that a child learns on average about 10 new words a month and
will actively use them and yet s\he can understand 22 new words a month. (i.e.
comprehension is ahead of production in the early stages, and this is known as
the passive vocabulary). Helen Benedict recognised that a child understands
five times as many words as s\he is capable of producing at 18 months.
When these words are added to a child’s vocabulary, s\he is not aware of their
full range of meanings. Further time is needed to acquire this additional
knowledge. Of course, lexical and semantic development is a lifelong process as
we never cease to learn new vocabulary throughout our lives.
First Words
Studies have shown that there are predictable patterns in the words and types
of words first acquired by children. KATHERINE NELSON made a study of 18
children’s first 50 words and she noticed the following patterns:
Young children have little sense of the concept of time and therefore talk about
the “here and now”.
They rapidly build a vocabulary in several semantic fields.
ENTITIES
PEOPLE: - significant relationships – mummy, daddy, but also visitors –
postman, milkman
FOOD: - drink, juice, milk, water, toast, apple, cake
HUMANS: - baby, man
CLOTHES: - shoes, hat, nappy, coat
VEHICLES and their noises: car, boat, truck, choo-choo, brrr…
ANIMALS: - (real, pictures or TV): dog, cat, lion, horse
TOYS and Games – ball, bricks, ‘peepo’
HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS: - (daily routines) cup, spoon, brush, key, light
BODY PARTS (and functions!) facial words first – mouth, then toes, handies,
nose. (functions – wee wee, poo)
CLD booklet, updated 2009
PROPERTIES
Hot, all gone, more, dirty, cold
ACTIONS
(Up), sit, see, eat, go (down)
PERSONAL\SOCIAL
Hello, bye, no, yes, please, thank you
SITUATIONAL WORDS (deictics)
Here, there, that, mine
You will perhaps notice that the entities are NOUNS, the actions are VERBS
(except the bracketed words. Can you explain why these act as verbs here,
although they are not verbs?), the properties act as MODIFIERS.
By classifying words in this way, Nelson made interesting observations. First,
she noted that the largest group of words (60%) were NOUNS, mainly concrete
nouns. The second largest group (20%) were words that expressed or demanded
actions. The next largest group were MODIFIERS and used to describe people
or objects. The sample was completed by personal and social words.
Noticeably absent are words that serve only a grammatical function, even
though these are very frequent in adult language (e.g. ‘the’, ‘of’, ‘to’).
Semantic Development
As mentioned before, children do not learn a word with its meaning ‘ready made’.
They have to work out for themselves what it must mean. In doing this they
make errors. Three types of error occur often during the second and third
year.
OVER-EXTENSION – This is when a word is given a broader, more general
meaning than it should have eg all men are ‘daddy’. This is the main semantic
error made by young children (when a child has a vocabulary of 50 words, it is
estimated that about a third of these are likely to be over-extended).
As the child’s vocabulary grows, s\he learns words to fill the gaps that over-
extended words had previously been used to fill. Where once all fruits were
CLD booklet, updated 2009
‘apples’, the child will now know ‘oranges’, ‘pears’, ‘cherries’ etc. This process of
over-extension can be defined more clearly:
CATEGORICAL OVER-EXTENSION - This is sometimes called the SEMANTIC
FEATURES HYPOTHESIS. The baby over-extends on the basis of the features
that combine to give an object meaning e.g. colour, shape, sound, movement etc.
So any moving thing with four legs could be called a ‘cat’. All round objects may
be ‘moon’.
ANALOGICAL OVER-EXTENSION - (sometimes called the FUNCTIONAL
SIMILARITIES HYPOTHESIS). Here, over-extension results from similarities
in the uses to which objects are put. Things used to hold liquid might all be
called ‘cups’.
Babies are really doing something very clever and something that we all do even
as adults – if we do not know the word for something, we use the nearest word
we know.
STATEMENT: This type of ‘usage’ occurs when a child makes a statement about
something as a way of labelling eg child points to cupboard and says ‘biscuit’.
S\he doesn’t mean that the cupboard is called a biscuit but that it is where the
biscuits are kept.
UNDER-EXTENSION
This is the second most common semantic virtuous error made by children. It
occurs when a word is given a narrower meaning than it has in adult language. An
example is when a child uses the word “shoes” to apply only to the child’s own
shoes.
MISMATCH
Here, there is no apparent basis for the non-standard use of a word by the
child, as when in one case a telephone was referred to as a ‘tractor’. There is
usually no way of tracing back the association of ideas that has caused such
misidentifications.
As the child’s vocabulary grows, there will be fewer virtuous semantic errors as
words\meanings are acquired to fill gaps. However, lexical virtuous errors will
be made occasionally for some time as the child learns to understand the world
linguistically.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
By the age of 2, spoken vocabulary probably exceeds 200 words but after this
estimates become extremely vague. A dramatic increase in the size and
diversity of the lexicon takes place during the third y ear and beyond this
vocabulary totals should be estimated with great caution.
As the child’s lexicon grows there are other issues to discuss and what follows
here are some other areas of interest to extend your knowledge. A recognition
of this wider research will certainly pay off if you can grasp and use it.
Labelling, Packaging and Network Building
JEAN AITCHISON (1987) identified these three stages or processes that
occur during a child’s acquisition of vocabulary.
LABELLING is the first stage and involves making the link between the sounds
of particular words and the objects to which they refer (e.g. understanding that
‘mummy’ refers to the child’s mother).
PACKAGING entails understanding a word’s range of meaning. Under-extension
and over-extension occur before this stage is successfully negotiated. Consider
words like ‘plug’, ‘funny’.
NETWORK BUILDING involves grasping the connections between words:
understanding that some words are opposite in meaning, for example, and
understanding the relationship between HYPERNYMS and HYPONYMS.
Verbal Art
The research of GARDNER (1975) looked at a child’s ability to use language
figuratively. This makes interesting reading on Pages 203-206 of David
Crystal’s “Listen to Your Child”.
Lexical Creativity - Being an Inventor
One of the most rewarding (and entertaining) aspects of studying the language
of young children is their inexhaustible linguistic resource. They appear to be
rarely stuck for words and make up words where they do not exist. They are
experts at coining to fill gaps in their vocabulary.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
To create new words, children use PREFIXES and SUFFIXES that they already
know and COMPOUND words. They also show remarkable CONVERSION
abilities. The virtuous error has never been so virtuous.
What this section looks at is how children master the structure of words.
SUFFIXING
If you can remember Jean Berko’s ‘wug’ theory you will recall that children
appeared to know instinctively that an ‘S’ inflection makes the plural in English
as a rule. Consequently they soon realise that generally ‘- ed’ is the ending
required to form the simple past tense.
If you were to invent some imaginary verbs, a child would probably convert them
to past tense easily
eg I like to smunt so yesterday I smunted
I like to vond so yesterday I ___________
A child learns the word formation rule and, in addition, that the endings are not
just extra sounds but an extra bit of meaning. The child also learns that these
sounds and meanings are detachable and can be used often to alter meanings of
words in the same way. What the child does not know (but that linguists do) is
that s\he is learning the usefulness of the SUFFIX in word creation.
Unfortunately for the child learning English there are many exceptions and this
is when the virtuous errors are made, especially on irregular past tenses and
irregular plurals
eg mouses: I like mouses
mans: Those mans are playing football
fell/fall I falled off my bike.
break/broke The toy breaked.
They are also impervious to correction by adults, preferring to rationalise and
perfect the grammatical process for themselves.
A member of staff recorded the following real exchange with her daughter as
an example:
Child: It was great at school today, mum. We hided from Miss Sharman.
Mother: Oh, you HID did you?
Child: Oh yes, we all HUD.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
PREFIXES
By grasping common PREFIXES the child is able to further extend his\her
vocabulary. For example, he\she can make a word negative by grasping the
prefixes ‘dis’ and ‘un’
e.g. undo disappear
unzip dislike
Further in the course you will learn the origins of the many prefixes and
suffixes in the English language and just how versatile the language is through
conversion
e.g. able________(washable)
re ________ (retake)
ness_______ (sadness)
All languages change and adapt to the needs of their speakers and when new
words are needed, it is handy to construct them from the existing word stock
by using predictable processes that are recognised and used by children even as
young as 2½ years old.
CONVERSION
Another skill of word creation and vocabulary building started in childhood is
the ability to convert (i.e. change a word’s grammatical class usually by adding a
PREFIX or a SUFFIX).
The following words are invented to demonstrate the process:
I dilt (verb) things all the time. I’m a dilter (noun). SUFFIX ‘er’
I need to blamp (verb) this. Where’s the blamper (noun)? added
Think of 5 real verbs in English which can convert to nouns in this way
eg to run runner
to clean cleaner
CLD booklet, updated 2009
The child recognises the grammatical change: s\he knows that the verb refers
to an action (eg to sing) and the noun (eg singer) refers to an instrument for
carrying out the action.
Finally, there is another type of conversion which is fairly common in English.
Here, adjectives are directly converted into verbs meaning ‘to make or become’.
Examples are ‘to slim’ meaning ‘to make or become slim’ ; ‘to empty’ meaning ‘to
make or become empty’. Children experiment a great deal with this process eg
I’m darking the sky for ‘I’m colouring in the sky in a dark colour’. (English, of
course, uses the form ‘darken’ but the word eludes the child. Instead, the child
invents one which comes pretty close!).
Children are more inventive than adults, partly because their vocabularies are
still growing and they might not yet know the existing word for a concept they
are trying to express or they may momentarily forget words eg a bed is a
‘sleeper’ !
COMPOUNDING
In suffixing and prefixing, we add elements that are not words on their own.
Compounding is a process used to describe whole words being combined in their
own right. The process is widely used in English and is historically the earliest
form of word creation eg scarecrow, postman, notebook.
Children are inspirational in their use of compounds
eg plate egg (a fried egg) noun + noun
cup egg (a boiled egg) noun + noun
hit boy (bully) verb + noun
We can analyse compounds in terms of the word classes being combined and the
meaning relationship between them.
The following lexical inventions have been recorded from children’s speech.
Describe the word formation process and meaning relations involved.
1. When you laugh I can see the gaplings in your teeth.
2. How do you sharp this? (holding pencil)
3. That dog’s earthing its bone.
4. I’m souping (eating soup).
5. We had to wait a long time in the column in the post office.
6. You have to scale it (weigh cheese).
CLD booklet, updated 2009
7. That man’s stripes are tight (braces).
Other Issues
The study of semantic development takes in far more than vocabulary.
Grammatical constructions also need to be studied from a semantic point of
view. For example, the complex conditional meaning of ‘if’ constructions or the
causal meaning of ‘because’, ‘so’ and ‘since’. The errors children make reveal the
difficulties:
The man’s fallen off the ladder because he’s broken his leg.
I had one fish left because its name was Bill.
Children of 8 or 9 may master the grammatical construction well but have
difficulty with the meanings they encode. Auxiliary verbs ‘ought’, ‘must’ and
‘should’ provide another problem area as do verb contrasts (ask vs tell and say
vs promise).
The ability to use figurative language and see double meanings in language
develops after the age of 6.
Semantic development continues throughout the school years and throughout
adult life. UNLIKE PHONOLOGY AND GRAMMAR it is NOT OVER when
children enter their teens. There is always new vocabulary to be learned, new
worlds of meaning to explore and existing structures to manipulate.
USING THE CORPUS
(The corpus is in a separate handout that you will get from your teacher)
1. In Corpus III there is an example of an over-extension. Write it down,
explain the “error” and say what type of over-extension it is.
2. In Corpus IV there are two examples of mis-labelling. Find these. What
qualities do the two things share?
3. Explain these misconceptions:
a) Duck: a duck swimming on a pond; a cup of milk; a coin with an eagle on
it; a teddy bear’s eye
b) Cookie: cookies; records; all music
4. Use Corpus III 1-3. The child uses single-word utterances but has bigger
statements in mind. What might these be?
5. Explain these “errors”:
a) “I’m going to die this spider”
CLD booklet, updated 2009
b) “I’m just going to fall this on her”
c) “I’m swimming my duck”
6. In Corpus II, 11 Sophie uses an unexpected verb. What is it? Which word
would you use? Can you explain the similarities between the child’s choice
and your choice?
7. In Corpus II 5 there are two instances of an expression unlikely to be used
by an adult. Can you spot them and explain why an adult would not use these?
8. In Corpus II the mother is trying to help build up meaning relations. Name a
higher category noun that the mother does not use. Why not?
9. In Corpus V Dialogue 10, sentence 1, the child uses a verb in an inappropriate
way for its context. Which would you use? Why do you think the child uses
this verb?
10. In Corpus V Dialogues 10, 12 and 14, which word formation processes are
being used by the child?
11. Examine the whole of Corpus V for language creativity. Which of the
‘inventions’ would you be likely to correct if you were a parent? Why?
GRAMMATICAL DEVELOPMENT
There are three main aspects to a child’s acquisition of grammar: syntax,
the use of inflections and the understanding and application of grammatical
rules.
Syntax is the development of a child’s ability to create grammatical
constructions by arranging words in an appropriate order. However, there is
more to it than just placing words in the right order. To be fully
grammatical an English speaker must also acquire appropriate word endings
(inflections and be conversant with grammatical rules).
SYNTAX
One-Word Stage
The earliest stage of grammatical development hardly seems like grammar at
all, since only single words are used. The average child is about a year old
when she\he speaks the first word. Roughly between 12 and 18 months the
child speaks only in one-word utterances: ‘milk’, ‘mummy’, ‘cup’ and so on.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Occasionally more than one word will appear but the phrase will be used as a
single unit: ‘allgone’, ‘allfalldown’. Remember that 60% of words used at this
time have a naming function and will later develop into nouns. About 20%
express actions and some will develop into verbs.
However, to speak of these single utterances as ‘words’ is misleading. In
many respects these early utterances function as if they were sentences.
The words convey more complex messages. For example, the word JUICE
may be used to mean ‘I want some juice’, ‘I want more juice’, ‘I’ve spilt my
juice’ etc. The context, the child’s use of gesture and intonation enable the
parent to understand what the child means. On these occasions, single words
are in effect taking the place of more complex grammatical constructions,
which the child has not yet mastered.
[LINK THIS WITH YOUR WORK ON PHONOLOGY].
Linguists prefer to call these utterances HOLOPHRASES (or ‘one-word
sentences).
Although the child’s own utterances are limited, understanding of syntax is
more advanced. Children show this to be the case because they respond to
two-word instructions, such as ‘kiss mummy’.
TWO-WORD STAGE
Two-word sentences usually begin to appear when the child is about 18
months old, though single words continue to be used for some months after
this. Imagine you are at the two-word stage again:
1. Working with one other person, attempt to hold a conversation using only two
words at a time. If possible, record the conversation OR write down as many
of the combinations as you can after you have finished. You will find it
useful to decide on a topic of conversation before you start.
2. Now try the same conversation using full adult utterances, then discuss:
i. how the words in the two-word conversation were chosen
ii. the order of the words in the two-word utterances
iii. difficulties in being understood
3. To what extent do you agree that the two-word stage creates meaning
through words only?
CLD booklet, updated 2009
MEANING RELATIONS IN THE TWO-WORD STAGE
Here are some typical two-word utterances spoken by babies:
mummy gone baby table
she silly silly hat
mummy car my doggie
there teddy comb hair
daddy pen baby cry
1. Here is a way of explaining these combinations. Apply them to the data if
you can.
a person performs an action
a person or object is described
an action affects an object
an object is located
an object is given a possessor [Crystal 1986]
2. Now try applying clause elements (subject, verb, object, adverbial, etc) to
the two-word utterances.
3. Braine (1963) described PIVOT grammar in which pivot words appear
repeatedly and are always in the same position. ‘Open’ words appear last. Is
this true of the data given here?
Perhaps your discussion reveals that Crystal’s theory explains the purposes (or
semantic relations) of most of the utterances. Braine’s theory explains some of
the ways in which the words are combined but has largely been discredited as a
description of two-word grammar. You may have found the noun + noun
combinations most difficult to categorise as they can have more than one
semantic relationship – a person performs an action or an object is given a
possessor.
The research of BLOOM (1973) is useful in understanding the meanings of two-
word utterances. The same sentence (e.g. ‘mummy sock’) could express
different meanings.
e.g. ‘This is mummy’s sock’ (said when the child was picking it up)
‘Mummy is putting my sock on me’ (said when the child’s mother was doing this)
CLD booklet, updated 2009
The ambiguity of some two-word utterances arises partly because inflectional
affixes are absent. These include, for example ‘s’ at the ends of words to
denote plural or possession, and ‘ed’ to indicate past tense.
Until the child develops the syntactic component, the creativity and flexibility
of language cannot be developed. The child has to move from a stage when
meaning is realised in SOUND (ie intonation) and GESTURE to a more complex
level when meaning is realised in a sentence.
As you can see, the holophrastic and two-word stages are highly dependent on
context and situation. E.g. a child says “build tower”. What does it mean?!
(Difficult without context etc. isn’t it?).
The adult system makes a distinction between the types and meanings of
sentences:
DECLARATIVE - statement, assertion
INTERROGATIVE - question
IMPERATIVE - command
These distinctions are carried out by aspects of word order and the presence
or absence of syntactic markers. The child builds these up progressively. See
chart below.
A: Early 20 – 24 mths
B: Intermediate C: Late 3½ - 4 yrs
declarative that box
big boat
that’s box
that big boat
that’s a box
that’s a big boat
interrogative see shoe?
truck here?
mommy see shoe?
truck’s here?
or where’s truck?
do you see the shoe?
is the truck here?
where’s the truck
imperative want baby
negative no play I no play
Source: Menyuk (1971)
Try your skill in describing the meaning relations of the following two-word
utterances:
down dere more juice
ride bike dirty hands
no play look mummy
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Other issues in the two-word stage.
Transition
Some parents have recorded a transitional phase between holophrase and two-
word stages. Words are brought together but the sequence is not uttered as a
single rhythmical unit:
Daddy. Gone. Daddy. Garden. See. Daddy. Daddy. Garden.
Meaning is made but there is no fluency.
Imitating Parents
When a child tries to repeat what an adult says, s\he may omit some of the
words, but those that are retained will again usually be in an appropriate
grammatical order.
Adult: Look Sam’s playing in the garden.
Child: Play garden.
This example demonstrates how utterances focus on key words. Words that
convey less information or serve primarily grammatical functions (e.g. ‘in’, ‘the’)
are omitted.
TELEGRAPHIC STAGE
From the age of about two, children begin producing three- and four- word
utterances. Some of these will be grammatically complete but most will convey
the message at its most economical, without the appropriate grammatical words
and accurate inflections (word endings).
Man kick ball You put it
Where daddy going Laura broke plate
This condensed structure at the early telegraphic stage omits DETERMINERS
(e.g. a, the), AUXILIARY VERBS (e.g. is, has, etc) and PREPOSITIONS (e.g.
to, for).
Questions, commands and statements are being used and different clause
patterns are evident. By the end of the third year, clause structures of four or
five elements can be noticed.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
e.g. You give me my toy now.
Progress during the telegraphic stage is rapid. By the time the child is three,
sentences with more than one clause start to appear, and co-ordinating
conjunctions (‘and’, ‘but’) begin to be used. In fact, many linguists regard the
acquisition of the co-ordinator ‘and’ as a major linguistic milestone. What this
allows a child to do is talk forever! It is also the birth of the COMPOUND
sentence.
“I falled off my bike and it breaked and I cried and… and… and Ben
comed and helped me and my hand’s all sore and …”
David Crystal observes that this is the time when parents find themselves
rushing to speech therapists believing that their child has a speech impediment!
It helps to consider rationally what is actually happening with a child’s speech at
this time. Up until now utterances have been simple but now they can be over
twice as long. Non-fluency is bound to occur as the child copes with new
linguistic skills. There will often be a slow-slow-quick-quick-slow rhythym as
the child PLANS what to say next. The repetition (or stammer) is not a speech
defect, merely thinking time.
In short: sentences are twice as long
there are many things to say!
child is planning ahead
some thoughts are quite complicated
e.g. “If Father Christmas came down the chimney, and he will have presents
when he came down, can I stay up to see him”.
Notice the following conversation between a child and his mother. The child is
in the telegraphic stage. Observe how he wants to say something longer but
cannot and just how vital the mother’s role is in teasing out what he wants to
say.
Child: Falldown Sam
Mother: Where has Sam fallen down?
Child: In garden falldown Sam
Mother: Sam has fallen in the garden? Is he all right?
Child: Sam nose sore.
the information is released in stages
a conversation takes place
mother constructs child’s sentences using clues
CLD booklet, updated 2009
mother expands, creating fresh linguistic horizons
A great deal of grammatical knowledge is required before constructions are
used correctly. Utterances like the following are very common:
Are there much toys in the cupboard?
That’s more better
It got brokened
The study of errors is important because they show children breaking new
grammatical ground. For linguists they provide the main evidence of how
children go about actively learning new constructions.
Summary
Stage 1: Holophrastic Stage
Child’s Utterance Context or Explanation
mania Response to a poster of a woman
crustie The child’s crust of bread has fallen to the
floor, and he
wants someone to pick it up
Vaukie (i) In response to his mother saying,
‘Want to walk?’ indicating that the
child does want to go for a walk.
(ii) Later, trying to climb out of his
pram, perhaps verbalising his
intention to walk.
Stage 2: Two-Word Stage
Child’s Utterance Context or Explanation
pretty goggie Looking at his soft toy dog
goggie gone His toy dog has dropped underneath his
cot
pretty beads Looking at his mother’s new necklace
more bikky Asking for another biscuit
Stage 3: Telegraphic Stage
Child’s Utterance Context or Explanation
me want that Pointing at plasticine
baby in big bed ‘The baby is sleeping in the big bed’
you play snakes and ladders me ‘Will you play snakes and ladders with me?’
CLD booklet, updated 2009
The sorting out of grammatical errors is a particular feature of 4-year old
speech. Many irregularities of syntax and morphology are being mastered.
Sentences involving sub-ordination increasingly give way to COMPLEX sentences:
“I let go because it hurted me”.
The following subordinating conjunctions are gradually being added to the child’s
vocabulary: because (cos), so, if, after, what and when.
The following data gives examples of typical utterances spoken by children aged
2 and children aged 3. Discuss what this data illustrates about the language
abilities of children of these ages and how their ability has developed between
the ages of two and three:
Age 2 Age 3
Teddy on floor.
That stuck now.
Mummy gone out.
No daddy go.
Open it.
Put in box.
Look my dollie.
What doing it?
Fall down car.
My mouse eating.
More that in minute.
You put that on there.
Me go lots of cars like Jimmy.
Mummy want me to go in the garden.
Where you going with that red shovel?
Daddy comed to see me in the garden.
I can see mummy and daddy in the mirror.
Mary went in the Wendy house with me and
Paul.
Why you do that for?
Can me put it in like that?
It doesn’t go that way, it goes this way.
I got enough of those apples now.
Source: DAVID CRYSTAL, Listen to Your Child
ACQUISITION OF INFLECTIONS
Research has identified a predictable pattern in the acquisition of inflectional
affixes (e.g. word endings such as ‘ed’ and ‘ing’ ). Functional words such as
determiners (‘a’, ‘the’) and auxiliary verbs also seem to be acquired in a regular
order.
ROGER BROWN (1973) studied children’s language development between the
ages of 20 months and 36 months and found that the sequence shown below
occurred regularly (features are listed in the order in which they were
acquired):
CLD booklet, updated 2009
1. ing
2. plural — s
3. possessive ―’s
4. ‘the’ ‘a’
5. past tense ‘―ed’
6. third person singular verb ending ―s e.g. she eats
7. auxiliary ‘be’
Brown also observed the following non-inflectional issues: the preposition ‘in’
appeared before ‘on’; the irregular past tense form (eg ‘went’) appeared before
the regular (― ed).
Another study by CRUTTENDEN (1979) divided the acquisition of inflections
into three stages:
1. Initially, children memorise words on an individual basis and have no regard
for general principles or rules e.g. they may at first produce the correct
plural form of ‘foot’ (‘feet’) and the correct past tense for ‘run’ (‘ran’).
2. During the second stage, they show an awareness of the general principles
governing inflections and as a result may apply regular endings to words that
require irregular inflections. For example, they observe that plural nouns
usually end in ―s, so they use ‘foots’ as the plural of ‘foot’. In the same way,
they observe that past tense forms usually end in ―’ed’, so instead of ‘ran’
they say ‘runned’. (Known as OVERGENERALISATION or OVER-
REGULARISATION – you know these as virtuous errors, too!).
3. In the third stage, correct inflections are used, including irregular forms.
Example Lucy: Squeak, squeak. That’s what mouses do.
Mother: That’s what MICE do.
Lucy: What do mices does?
UNDERSTANDING OF GRAMMATICAL RULES
This involves the debate about whether children grasp grammatical rules or are
imitating what others say. Revise here the work of Chomsky, Lenneberg and
Jean Berko’s “Wug theory”. The work of Cruttenden and Brown is also
important in your evaluation of whether grammar is innate.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
However, please remember: Although children apply grammatical rules, they are
not conscious that they have acquired them and would not be able to explain
them.
Other Grammatical Issues
Pronouns
The advantage with pronouns (I, me, this, that, etc) is that you don’t have to
keep repeating the name of the person or thing you are talking to\about.
Researchers have yet to agree on an order in which pronouns are learned and
there may be considerable variation from person to person. It has been
suggested that a child will move through three stages between 3 and 5 years
old:
1. Pronouns are avoided altogether:
“Mummy do it” “Katie’s hungry” Adults actually talk this way to children
using nouns instead of pronouns.
2. The subject and object pronouns are confused.
“Him did it”
“Them’s all gone now”
“Let she do it”
“She likes to do that, her do”
3. The possessive pronoun appears but is incorrectly used: “This is him’s car”.
In general, children learn pronouns first for things they have already named.
These tend to be things in the immediate here and now.
Try it for yourself
Show a child of about 3 to 5 years old a picture. Describe it using pronouns.
Then ask the child to talk about the picture. Does the child use the pronouns or
replace them with nouns and noun phrases?
(Based on research of Thieman, 1974)
CLD booklet, updated 2009
Asking Questions
Asking questions involves quite complex constructions. Once again, research
suggests that children acquire this skill in three stages (Clarke 1985).
Try the following activity to help you work out what the three stages might be.
Turn the following statements into questions:
a] as an adult would
b] as a child would using the number of words shown in brackets.
Example: Daddy has gone (2) = a] Has daddy gone? b] Daddy gone?
1) We can sleep somewhere (4)
2) This is cold (1)
3) I saw that (4)
4) You can help me (4)
5) Mummy is coming home (2)
You have possibly realised that the three stages are:
STAGE ONE: Questions rely on intonation alone.
STAGE TWO: Question words are gradually acquired:
WHAT and WHERE first and then WHY, HOW and WHO.
STAGE THREE: ONLY in third year: auxiliary verbs are used and subject-
verb word order is reversed.
eg Joe is here Is Joe here?
However, questions involving ‘wh‘ words are not always invoked correctly
producing constructions such as ‘Why Joe isn’t here?’.
Saying ‘no’ (negation)
Ursula Bellugi (1967) suggests three stages for forming negatives, as follows:
Stage 21 (2 years) Stage 2 (2yrs 3
months)
Stage 3 (2yrs 9
months)
no …. wipe finger
not my bed
where mitten no
I can’t catch you
He no bite you
That no fish school
You can’t dance
This can’t stick
I didn’t did it
I not crying
CLD booklet, updated 2009
At Stage One, there is a single dependence upon the words ‘no’ and ‘not’, used
either singly or in front of other expressions: ‘no want’, ‘no go nome’.
At Stage Two, there is more variety of method with ‘don’t’ and ‘can’t’ being used
but without variation of tense. ‘No’ and ‘not’ continue to be used now in the
appropriate place (i.e. usually before the main verb).
In the two-word stage, children can use the negative very effectively, although
inaccurately, for many situations:
a] non-existence – “not there”, “no car”
b] rejection\refusal – “no drink”
c] denial of truth or accuracy - “not Sam”.
In the third stage, more negative forms are acquired (eg ‘didn’t’, ‘isn’t’) and the
negative constructions are generally used more accurately.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
LANGUAGE ACQUISITON – THE MAIN FEATURES
AGE VOCABULARY SEMANTICS PHONOLOGY GRAMMAR MILESTONES
0-9
mths None None
Vowel like sounds progress to
ababababab/dadadada sequences.
More complex
None
Basic biological noises
cooing and laughing
vocal play
babbling
melodic utterance
9–18
mths
Proto words –
the sound is clear
but not the
meaning
Only when sound of
an utterance and its
meaning both
become clear do we
have first word
(apprx.12 mths)
Melody, rhythm and tone develop,
also ‘scribble talk’
First words usually nouns – a
few verbs, adjectives and
‘social words’ (bye-bye, ta)
Children from different
language backgrounds
now sound increasingly
different from each
other.
2nd
year
75% vocabulary
belongs to action
and naming words.
As second
birthday
approaches, most
children have
built up a core
vocabulary of 200
words.
Vocabulary drawn
from people, actions,
food, parts of body,
clothing, animals,
vehicles, toys,
household objects,
locations, social
words, describing
words, pronouns.
Word order changed
to express different
meanings eg ‘man
tickle’ v. ‘tickle man’
Pronunciation still very immature.
Some have 2-3 consonants and 1
vowel. Consonants sounds made at
lips and ‘stopped consonants’ likely
to appear very early on.
Substitution of easier sounds for
difficult.
Reduplication
One word stage lasts around
six months
‘Holophrases’ one word
sentences (eg ‘gone’ = it has
gone)
At approx. 18 months child
starts to string 2 words
together.
Main patterns of word order
observed
Prepositions emerging, also
possessives and pronouns.
‘Grammar on the move’
3rd
year
500 words by 2½;
1000 by 3.
Children discovering
words with several
meanings eg ‘funny’ =
strange or amusing;
‘call’ = shout, visit or
telephone
By 3 children have begun to use
almost all their vowels and have
about twice as many consonants
as they do at 2.
3-4 words per sentence
average at 2; sentences of 9-
10 words not uncommon at 3.
Telegraphic speech at 2; by 3
function words increase and
sentences lose their
telegraphic quality.
‘Virtuous errors’ eg ‘she
taked’, ‘mouses’
Explosion of language.
Huge linguistic leap
Pre-
school
years
Working
vocabulary of
approx 5,000
words
Social words
making their
appearnace
As child’s world
widens (play group,
nursery school) so
they explore new
meanings and new
words
By 3½ all vowels should be in use,
as should many of the consonants.
Cluster consonants make their
appearance
temporary stammering may occur
end of third year, beginning of
fourth
Sentences become much
longer with introduction of
the word ‘and’; other
conjunctions follow later.
Word order in a sentence
largely mastered
Dramatic changes at
three
Linguistic milestone –
use of word ‘and’
Early
school
years
Vocabulary level
of pre-adolescent
child somewhere
between 10,000 &
20,000 words
Learning to define
words by using other
words
Metalanguage
evolving
Using figures of
speech.
By eight, simple puns
mastered
Most five year olds fairly fluent
Children gradually picking up
different styles of speech for
different settiings
New pronunciations learned if
family move from one part of
country to another
More sophisticated
conjunctions come into play
but even at age twelve they
still fall short of adult use
Most ‘virtuous errors’ now
phased out
Children fairly
proficient linguists by 5
but language acquisiton
never stops
CLD booklet, updated 2009
ESSAY PRACTICE
1. Explain what is meant by the statement that children acquire language in
stages, and consider some of the evidence for and against this view.
2. Discuss the parents’ role in child language acquisition.
3. What changes in a child’s use of language would you expect after the two-
word stage?
4. Discuss the idea that the language of young children is an inferior version of
adults’ use of language.
5. Discuss and illustrate ways in which children learn to use language for a
variety of functions.
6. “A child spends the first year of its life preparing to speak”. Discuss early
language development in the light of this comment.
7. “When a three-year-old child says “we wented there”, I feel like
congratulating her on her knowledge of English grammar.” With reference to
this statement, explain some of the ways in which young children
demonstrate knowledge of English grammar.
8. In what ways do young children show an awareness that language enables us
to interact with others?
9. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the argument that children have an
innate capacity for language. What other explanations have been offered?
10. Compare input and innateness theories of language acquisition. Are the two
approaches incompatible?
11. Explain what is meant by child-directed speech and consider the role that it
plays in language development.
12. Many adults use particular ways of talking to babies and young children who
are learning to talk. Describe the distinctive linguistic features of this kind
of adult language. How helpful to children who are learning to talk are the
ways that adults use language when talking to them?
13. Discuss some of the theories about the way that children acquire language.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
REVISION
How much do you know?
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: THE TOPIC
For this topic you should study how children go through the initial phases of
language acquisition and keep a clear overview and understanding at every stage
of your revision.
A BRIEF CHECK-LIST MIGHT BE
the function of children’s language (Halliday)
the development of phonological competence in speech
the development of lexis and semantics
the main features of grammar, especially holophrastic, two-word and
telegraphic stages
the development of pragmatic competence
theories about language acquisition: imitation, innateness, cognition,
input
YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO
Discuss the stages of the pre-verbal development of children’s language
Explain the order in which children acquire vowels and consonants, the
typical features of early pronunciation
Discuss the relationships between speech production and comprehension
Discuss the development of NVAS
Discuss how children develop interactional skills
Identify and classify children’s early vocabulary
Explain the active process by which children acquire semantic knowledge
Comment on children’s creation of new words: conversion, compounding,
prefixation, suffixation
Analyse the meaning of holophrases (i.e. one word to convey a more
complex idea)
Characterise the two-word stage
Describe the expansion of word classes and morphemes used in the
telegraphic stage
Discuss imitation, innateness, cognition and input theories of language
CLD booklet, updated 2009
acquisition and test these against your own data or at least against the ‘Genie’
study.
ALSO, YOU MUST learn to apply your knowledge of stages to data in order to
effectively answer the first part of the question.
REMEMBER, you don’t need to apply theory in the data response, only in the
essay, but you must be able to label features to demonstrate your
understanding of the topic.
CLD booklet, updated 2009
BOOK LIST
The following books are useful to develop your understanding of this topic.
Those with an asterisk (*) are particularly accessible and highly recommended:
AITCHISON, Jean The Articulate Mammal*, London: Unwin Hyman 1989
AITCHISON, Jean The Reith Lectures* 1996
AITCHISON, Jean Words in the Mind*, Oxford: Blackwell 1987
CRYSTAL, David The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language, CUP 1997
CRYSTAL, David Child Language, Learning & Linguistics: Edward Arnold
1976
CRYSTAL, David Listen to your Child*: Penguin 1986
DONALDSON, M. Children’s Minds, London: Fontana 1986
DE VILLIERS, J. & P. Early Language: The Developing Child: Fontana 1979
(particularly good on Piaget’s approach!)
FOSTER, Susan H The Communicative Competence of Young Children:
Longman 1990
GARTON, Alison &
PRATT, Chris: Learning to be Literate: Blackwell 1998
GARVEY, Catherine Children’s Talk*: Fontana 1984
(very good on children’s conversations)
MYSZOR, Frank Language Acquisition: Hodder & Stoughton 1999
PECCEI, Jean Stilwell Child Language: Routledge 1994
PINKER, Steven The Language Instinct: The Penguin Press 1994
SHAW, Clare Talking and Your Child: Hodder & Stoughton 1993
WANG, William S-Y The Emergence of Language Development and
Evolution: Freeman & Co. 1991